Mike Piercy meets
From Lacey Green History
Hallmark March 2025. The Red Lion Tea Room. One of my friends from the tennis club was extolling the virtues of the Red Lion Café and Tea Room at Bradenham so I arranged to visit and chat to Lisa who runs the place.
Most of you will Know that practically all of Bradenham and its houses is owned by the National Trust. Back in 2017 the Red Lion pub fell vacant and the trust decided they would like to have a tea room in the village.
Lisa Hunt has worked in the hospitality industry for years, most recently running a pub in Hurley. She decided that running a tea room would give her a better quality of life and agreed to take on the lease. She converted the building so it now has a kitchen and servery area with two rooms with a dozen dining tables. The ambience is warm and snug with subdued lighting and plenty of room between the tables. There is disabled access but the limitations of the building rule out full disabled toilets.
The majority of the clientele drive to the café and there is a big car park round the back. They also get lots of walkers as there are many beautiful walks around Bradenham – and dogs are welcome. Though most visitors are of a mature age, young families and children come too.
The prime reason for visiting is the quality of the food. Lisa is very proud that all the items on the menu are home made and cooked from scratch. She employs a specialist pastry chef to ensure high quality. The menu features plenty of vegetarian and vegan items and the gluten-intolerant people are also catered for.
In recognition of this the Red Lion was awarded the Best Cafe or Tea Room in Bucks at the Food and Drinks Award last October. Her loyal regulars had entered the competition without Lisa's knowledge and it came as a massive surprise when she won.
The Cafe is very busy nowadays – even in winter, and Lisa recommends that you book your table in advance – especially at weekends.
Hallmark June 2024. Speen Farm. Horses, Hounds and Heroes
All our residents know the Lacey Green Windmill and many visit regularly. However we have another, less obvious, famous site in walking distance of Lacey Green – the Horse Trust in Slad Lane. I’ve not visited for many years so I thought it was high time to put that right, so on a lovely sunny afternoon I met with one of the directors, Jessica Tallman, who showed me around.
The Trust look after up to 140 equine residents on the site at any one time. 70% of these are retired service horses who have finished their working life and are now enjoying a relaxed life in the country. Many of these are gentle giants who have come from the military or police backgrounds, though there is a sprinkling of horses from other walks of life, such as retirees from the Riding For The Disabled. At the other end of the size scale there are a couple of donkeys and many Shetland Ponies – who are a great hit with the kids – visitors can even groom the ponies on some Sundays.
Sadly the other 30% of residents come from less happy backgrounds and have been rescued from awful condition and have been taken in by the Trust for respite and recovery. The Trust has 50 staff including in-house vets and equine behaviour professionals to help recovery.
The site has developed over the 50 years it has been in Speen and now has beautiful grounds, exercise and display areas, stables, museum and the all-important tea room in a beautiful listed barn. The site is open in the afternoons of Thursday to Sunday. You need to buy a ticket online in advance so check the website for details. It is a lovely place to take any visitors you may have this summer.
On Sunday June 30 the Trust will be holding their “Horses, Hounds and Heroes” event. There will be horse riding displays by the Cavalry and the Met Police, with side shows, live music, food stalls, and even a dog show. Do go along and support their work.
Hallmark June 2024. The Buckinghamshire Councillors.
A couple of weeks before Easter our councillors held a ‘surgery’ in Lacey Green Village Hall so I went along to meet them. We are in the Ridgeway West ward of Buckinghamshire Council and three councillors have been elected for our ward. They will be running 4 surgeries this year. Today the surgery was being run by Councillor Shade Adoh and Councillor Robert Carington.
They did not hold a surgery in Lacey Green last year and as it was still early in the year, word had not got around as much as they would like and very few residents attended. We agreed that more publicity will be needed for the next meeting in Lacey Green at the end of November. I was told that though they are happy to discuss any topic, people come to the face to face meetings to discuss the more complex and delicate issues.
Each councillor has specific responsibilities within the Council. Councillor Adoh speaks on equality and diversity. She is also on the Council's select committee for adult and social care and the select committee for children and education. She also sits on the Fire Authority executive. Councillor Carington is Vice Chairman of the Transport, Environment and Climate select committee as well as sits on the Audit and Governance Select Committee and the Standards Committees. Both of them have full time jobs outside the council and both have families to look after. They must have very full diaries!
Councillor Adoh has been a councillor since 2015 and has been through the merger of the old District and County Councils into the unitary authority. We discussed projects that the councillors have worked on in our ward.
They talked about the role of the North West Chiltern Community Board and the funding it can bring to local charities and good causes. If you look at their website you can find some examples of local projects that they have carried out.
If you are associated with a local organisation who are trying to raise money then the Community Board should be one of your first contacts.
They can provide grants of up to £1,000 for small projects, or contributory funding of up to £15,000 for larger projects.